Sunday, June 22, 2008

GTD best practices

These are some of my GTD best practices I found important for myself so far:
  • Get priority thinking off your mind!
  • Get some Someday/Maybe projects (including dreams, goals) to give you a better feeling that your lists have it all
  • The calendar is only for rock solid tasks that will occur at that time (not plans / tasks that you would like to do = not prioritizing)
  • Make some / more checklists and mind maps when evaluating possible projects or tasks, these will then go into the Inbox and be processed accordingly (incubate, trash, new projects / tasks?)
  • Put a date on all notes, lists, checklists, mind maps, memos, etc.
  • Have projects that have really good and well defined next actions
  • Try not to have too many single actions on Miscellaneous lists but instead ask yourself: "are these really single and independent actions, or would they actually be better off in a small projects, even only having 2-3 actions overall?"
  • Put all manuals that are too big to fit into the filing system (e.g. software manuals) to one place in a bookshelf or drawer, order them also from A-Z
  • Put non-file-able stuff that lays around into boxes, label them and store them in your cellar or pavement
  • Always add phone number to "phone call" related tasks
  • Every email that is a delegation, request or where you wait for an answer should be CC'd to yourself and then processed accordingly (add to projects / lists) and then put in the @Waiting folder in your email
  • Read the GTD best practices as often as necessary, until they are incorporated into your daily GTD mindset

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